


The Reproduction of Opposing Forces

by nostalgia



Category: Doctor Who (1963), Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Babyfic, Buffy the Vampire Slayer References, Childbirth, Cold War, Dictatorship, F/M, Gallifrey, Half-Human, Heterosexual Sex, IKEA, Martha Jones - Freeform, Mild Peril, Sex in a TARDIS, Sontarans - Freeform, Time Babies, Unplanned Pregnancy, cast of literally several, cat-nuns, jack harkness - Freeform, mickey smith - Freeform, twissy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-05
Updated: 2017-07-04
Packaged: 2018-07-21 18:26:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 16,195
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7398607
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nostalgia/pseuds/nostalgia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Can Missy convince the Doctor that she has changed? And will she actually?</p>
<p>(Twissy babyfic!)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Anger, thought Missy, was a good look on the Doctor. She practically skipped as she followed him back to his TARDIS, enjoying his rage and occasionally protesting her own innocence because she knew that would just upset him further. 

“This is the last time I ever trust you about anything,” he seethed. 

“Really, Doctor, I'm not sure why you're complaining. Hardly anyone died.”

He stopped walking suddenly and Missy halted just before she bumped into him. “If you're going to destabilise a government -” he began.

“Which you do all the time.”

“That's not the point! You can't blame me for your actions!”

“If you say so,” she said, feigning disinterest.

He scowled at her and started walking again. Missy had to rush a bit to keep up with him, but she didn't really mind. She knew him better than he knew himself, was therefore perfectly aware that he was hoping to leave this planet before he did something silly and possibly violent. 

The Doctor was very, very angry and Missy was very, very aroused. 

As they reached his TARDIS he snapped his fingers to open the doors, which was showing off and could lead to door-related problems later on, but that was his problem, not hers. She followed him inside and let the doors slam shut behind her. 

The Doctor was still upset, and he turned to confront her. “If you ever do anything like that ever again -”

“Stop talking,” she said, pulling him close and kissing him. He tensed and caught her by her upper arms, trying to move her away.

“Don't pretend you don't like me”, she said, a little breathlessly. She managed to back him up against the outer doors, pressing herself against him. 

“I can't stand you,” he said, which she took to be a lie because _something_ in his trousers was definitely taking an interest in proceedings. He turned them around, and Missy was quite delighted to find herself trapped between Doctor and door. She was fairly certain there would be sex after - or possibly during - this argument. 

“Well, I don't like you either,” she said as she started unfastening his trousers. “You're a boring old hippy and you never let me have any fun.”

“Your idea of fun,” he hissed, lifting her from her feet and balancing her against the wall, “isn't mine.”

She wrapped her legs around him and held onto his shoulders with her hands. “You're so beautiful when you're angry.”

“Shut up.”

“I don't think I will. I think I'll just... oh!”

And that's how it all began, more or less.

 

A very long time ago, the Time Lords of Gallifrey went to some effort re-engineering their bodies in new and wonderful ways. They added the ability to regenerate, the respiratory bypass, a few extra senses, and all of it combined to make something that would turn a Silurian green with envy if they weren't already green to begin with.

So when Missy found that her favourite skirt was too tight, she simply sped up her metabolism a bit to get rid of the extra weight and carried on as normal. 

That it might be something _else_ occurred to her only some time later, and she blamed her oversight on Gallifreyan biology and on having been a woman for only a relatively short time. 

Finally she scanned herself and confirmed that she was, indeed, pregnant. Which was ridiculous and she certainly wasn't willing to carry a baby around inside her when she had things to do and plans to be getting on with. 

Well, these things could be fixed. There was a very nice hospital on - 

This practical train of thought was shunted aside by a different concept entirely – this wasn't a problem, this was an _opportunity_.

She might not care about children, but _the Doctor_ clearly did and surely he could only care _even more_ about one of (presumably) his own? And he'd certainly do her bidding if he thought an innocent life was at stake, as evidenced by all the times she'd merely had to threaten Jo Grant to get him to play along with her schemes. 

Missy looked down at herself and smiled. She put a hand on her abdomen. “Well,” she said, “I might just be able to find a use for you after all.” 

Now all she had to do was find the Doctor, which probably wasn't going to be very difficult since he seemed to spend about 90% of his time on Earth (and Missy knew perfectly well _why_ , thanks for asking). She set her TARDIS in flight with a smile on her face and a skip in her step. This was going to be good – she couldn't wait to see his face. He'd probably be awed and terrified in equal measure, which was all she had ever asked from him. 

What could possibly go wrong?

 

Missy arrived on Earth in the 1970s to find her TARDIS disguised as a filing cabinet, parked quite indecently close to the Doctor's TARDIS. She frowned her disapproval at it, not willing to put up with the kind of nonsense that the Doctor took from his own ship. 

She was in a large cupboard full of cleaning equipment. It was cold and dry and not remotely fascinating. She opened the door and stepped out into a long corridor with concrete walls and a series of numbered doors along one side. 

It looked to be one of those Cold War bunkers where humans planned to send their governments in times of nuclear danger, presumably so that they could suffer for a good long while before they died of a war they had probably started themselves. These places had never really appealed to her. It wasn't the vague scent of terror that bothered her, or the promise of death, more it was the general lack of aesthetic value. If Missy had to choose a place to die she'd at least make sure it was comfortable and expensive-looking.

She eventually found the Doctor in a large and surprisingly busy control-room. Humans bustled about the place looking serious and anxious and the Doctor was at the centre of the activity reading something and occasionally glancing at a computer screen. Finally he saw her, catching her eye and scowling at her. Missy smiled pleasantly in response. He crossed the room to her. 

“What are you doing here?” he demanded.

“Looking for you,” she replied, calmly.

He didn't seem to be surprised by this. “Any particular reason or are you just trying to annoy me?”

“No reason,” she lied, “I just wanted to see what you were up to.” No need to give him her news just yet, she could keep it for a funnier or more potentially-upsetting moment. She made a show of looking around the room. “Are you playing Global Thermonuclear War again? Can I play too?”

He looked at her seriously. “You can help me save the planet or you can leave me alone, your choice.”

She let him think she was considering her options. “Well, I don't know. On the one hand I have the nagging sense that time is being rewritten, and that always makes me want to hurt someone, but on the other hand I don't really care if humans kill themselves en masse.” 

“I'd be grateful,” he said through gritted teeth, “if you'd help me with this situation. I've got two opposing computer systems to convince not to kill each other, and I still don't know who caused all this.”

“Can't you deal with it yourself?” She asked, all innocence. 

“Of course I can!” He paused. “Probably.”

“I'll help you,” she said, generously, “but you have to be nice to me.”

“I'm always nice to you,” he insisted.

“You left me behind on Skaro! I could have died!”

He had the grace to look vaguely guilty. “But you didn't.”

“That's not the point and you know it.” She glared at a passing human who had the nerve to accidentally bump into her and then turned back to the only person in the room who was worth talking to. “I think I can find it in my hearts to forgive you, as long as you don't do it again.” She smiled. “What can I do to help?”

“Right, you can deal with the Soviet Union and I'll -”

“No, you can do the Communists, red isn't my colour.”

“Does it really matter?” he asked, obviously exasperated. 

“I don't know, does it?” 

“Missy, could you please take this seriously? If the Earth gets destroyed in 1978 then think of all the fun you won't have in the years after that. Didn't you enjoy that thing with the radio telescope and the entropy?”

She tilted her head. “Yes, that one was quite good, I suppose.”

“I even let you kill me that time, didn't I?”

She drew in a breath. “You didn't _let_ me kill you, it was all my own work!”

He waved a hand. “It's not important right now.”

“Yes, it is!”

He put his hands on her shoulders. “Missy, we can discuss this later. Right now we have about fifteen minutes to save the world.”

She shrugged out of his grip and moved to a nearby computer. “It might take _you_ fifteen minutes, but I can almost certainly manage it in ten.” She sniffed theatrically and got to work. 

 

Nine minutes and twenty-eight seconds later she smiled smugly as the crisis ended and mutually-assured destruction was avoided for another day. The humans were terribly relieved but Missy thought it would be a good idea to leave before the humans started to worry about where their saviours had actually come from. Besides, she and the Doctor had things to discuss that weren't fit for lesser beings to hear about.

She pulled him away from the embarrassing displays of gratitude and into the corridor with the cleaning cupboard at one end. 

“Why are you in such a hurry?” he asked with what sounded like suspicion. 

“I don't want you getting fleas or a skin infection from your new human friends. Though I suppose if you were going to catch something from a human it would have happened long ago.”

“They're not diseased,” he scowled. “They're a clever and remarkable species and you should respect them for what they've achieved.”

“Yes,” she said, “almost annihilating themselves over ideological conflicts. It's a good thing I turned up when I did or you'd be sitting in a desolate wasteland crying over their passing.”

“Someone interfered,” the Doctor said, leaping to humanity's defence with tedious inevitability. “I'm going to find out who did it and make sure they don't do it again.”

“Ah,” said Missy. 

The Doctor stopped walking as they reached the cupboard. “What?”

“That might have been me,” she said, casually. She shrugged. “It was a long time ago. You were exiled and I was bored. You know, all these years I thought this scheme just hadn't worked. Isn't it nice to finally know the truth?” She chuckled. 

The Doctor stared at her. “You? You almost wiped out humanity because you were _bored_?”

“Don't say it like it's weird. I'm sure you do silly things when you're bored as well. Picking up humans, writing on public property, going to see the moon-landing a few too many times.”

He didn't reply to that, just opened the cupboard door and headed to his TARDIS, fumbling in his pockets for the key. 

Missy followed him. “Did I upset you? Are you angry? Is there passionate hate-sex in our immediate future?”

“Yes, yes, no.”

She moved to stand between him and the door of his TARDIS. “You could at least spank me, I did give you something to do today, after all.”

He moved her aside and unlocked the door. “You're a terrible person,” he said.

“I know that, you know that, why are you suddenly shocked by this information?”

He disappeared into his TARDIS without answering her. Missy waited for him to pop back out and say something, but it dematerialised and left her standing on her own next to a mop.

“Well,” she said to herself, “that could have gone better.”


	2. Chapter 2

Missy sat in her library with a romantic novel in one hand and a cigar in the other. Occasionally she turned a page, but the words weren't sticking in her memory. Her attention was divided – she was still replaying the events in the bunker to work out just why the Doctor had stormed off on his own. He knew she wasn't inclined to morality, and it bruised her ego somewhat when he forgot that, but for her latest plan she probably needed him to think she had turned over another, less evil, leaf.

She puffed on the cigar and lifted a glass of brandy to her lips. Yes, some degree of subterfuge seemed to be in order. But would he believe her if she claimed to have changed her ways? Probably not, on balance, she decided. 

Perhaps the best approach was to let him think that he'd be able to change her. Yes, that would appeal to his enormous sense of self-righteousness. She would have to play it slow, convincing him that his influence on her was positive and helpful. 

She put down her glass and stubbed out her cigar, determined. It would be difficult, but she was capable of anything if she really put her mind to it. 

 

She tracked the Doctor down again in Blackpool, 1962. He was sitting on the beach, back against his TARDIS, wearing sunglasses. There was a small sandcastle by his feet.

“Having fun?” she asked as she approached.

He swiftly kicked the sandcastle over with a foot as if to erase any and all evidence of amusement. “No,” he said, “it's not as good as I remembered it being.” He took his sunglasses off when she stood in front of him, blocking out the sun. “Are you stalking me?” he asked. “Again?”

“No. Do you want to buy me an ice-cream?”

“I don't have any money.”

She sighed for effect. “You never have any money. Which, as I keep telling you, brings shame upon our species. We have _time-machines_ , we're not supposed to be _poor_.” 

“Your concern is duly noted and ignored. Why are you here?”

She smiled. “I just wanted to see my friend again.”

He seemed wary. “What are you up to and does it involve Sea-Devils?” He looked out to sea as though some might appear among the waves.

“No evil plan,” she said. “Cross my hearts. Actually that's partly what I wanted to discuss with you. I'm rethinking my future plans for ruling the universe. I thought you might be able to help.”

“Of course,” he said, sarcastically. “Do you want to renounce evil and travel with me instead?”

“You did offer,” she reminded him.

“That was centuries ago!”

“You never said there was a time limit.”

He looked up at her, and she could almost hear the thoughts turning in his head. She know that he'd always harboured sick fantasies of turning her good and spending the rest of their lives together. Frankly it made her feel nauseous, but she needed to keep up her pretence of being willing to change. 

“Are you being serious?” he asked.

“Absolutely,” she lied. 

He looked cautious but hopeful. “What's brought this on?”

“Well, that's the other thing I wanted to talk to you about.” She looked around the beach. “Somewhere less public,” she added.

He nodded and stood up, brushing sand from his clothes. He unlocked the door of his TARDIS and held it open for her. Missy stepped inside and stood by the console as he followed her in.

She decided that she wasn't going to let him prepare for the news, and launched into her prepared spiel as soon as the exterior doors closed. “Doctor, there's something I need to tell you. I've been... infected.”

“By what?” he asked, obviously concerned. 

“By the only real downside to being female, other than misogyny and the glass ceiling.”

Now the Doctor seemed confused. “Trousers without real pockets?”

“No,” she said, “it's worse than that. You and I are going to have a baby. I'm pregnant.”

She saw a quick frown of confusion,followed swiftly by his mouth falling open in surprise. His eyes widened and a look of realisation was followed quickly by an expression of purest fear. Missy wished that she had thought to record it to watch again later.

“But... how?”

“You're two thousand years old, you know perfectly well how.”

“I don't _want_ a baby,” he protested.

“Should have thought of that before you shagged me against the door of your TARDIS,” said Missy, trying to sound sincere and vulnerable.

He took a step towards her and then stepped back again a moment later. He wrung his hands and then shoved them into his pockets before moving them again, this time to run them through his hair. “Are you sure about this?” he asked eventually. “You're certain it's not just... I don't know... indigestion?”

Missy turned a few dials on the console and turned the scanner screen towards him. “See? Pregnant.”

“It certainly _looks_ like that,” he admitted, examining the readout. He looked at her. “Since when did you want more children?”

“I didn't do it on purpose,” she said. “It was an accident. But, well, you know. Sometimes I want things that aren't wanton destruction and massive death-tolls.”

“You do?” he asked, doubtfully.

“I told you, I want to explore new avenues of possibility in my life.” She didn't want to overdo it, but she added, “Maybe having someone to care for will help me change.”

“You have to want to change,” he said, “it won't just happen on its own.” 

She could tell that he desperately wanted to give her a chance. She knew that he had some sort of weird kink for 'curing evil with love', which was stupid of him but she could use it to her advantage. She just had to seem, well, curable. It had to be convincing, however, and taking it too far too soon would surely make him suspicious. 

“I'm prepared to try being a bit less...”

“Evil?” he ventured.

“Ambitious,” she finished. “Perhaps I can find other kinds of happiness. There's more than one way to skin a Sontaran, after all.” She stopped short of fluttering her eyelashes at him. 

“You're welcome to stay here with me,” he said, “but honestly I think it'll take some time before I trust you.”

“That's good enough for me,” she said with faux-cheer. 

He looked at her like he was waiting for the punchline, then eventually he nodded.

 

The Doctor gave her a room just down-corridor from the kitchen. It was a fairly spacious area with an ensuite bathroom, but she wondered who had used it before her. She looked under the bed for dropped objects, but there was nothing there that might give her a clue as to the room's previous inhabitants, just a thin layer of dust. 

There was a bookcase with volumes of an encyclopaedia on the shelves, and an empty vanity beside an equally-empty wardrobe. Well, at least she wasn't sharing the room with any obvious ghosts. She sat down on the bed, which creaked, and she thought over her new situation. 

She'd have to be on her best behaviour for a while, that much was clear. The Doctor was probably thinking much the same, if the separate bedrooms were anything to go by. ( _Bit late for that, my dear,_ she thought to herself.) Probably didn't want to commit himself emotionally before he was convinced that she really had changed her ways. That was understandable, as well as a bit hilarious. 

Missy hadn't thought much beyond this part of her plan, however. She knew that sudden betrayal was a given, but not when or how. Hopefully she wasn't actually going to have to raise a child, but she was willing to play a long game and that might involve there being an actual infant at some point to use as leverage. All she really knew was that she was going to make the Doctor trust her and then use his stupidity against him. Which, on reflection, wasn't really much of a plan.

She shrugged. She could wing it.

 

After a healthy three hours of sleep, Missy got up and started getting ready for the day ahead. She showered and dried, and then hummed quietly to herself as she brushed her hair and put it up in her habitual bun. 

She stood before the wardrobe. “Something in black, I think.” She opened the door to find it full of brightly-coloured clothes. She slammed it shut and glared up at the ceiling. “I said black, you stupid bitch.” The TARDIS didn't rise to her bait, and when she opened the wardrobe door again there was a selection of monochrome clothing available. She nodded, satisfied, and picked out a skirt, blouse, and jacket. Thus prepared she went to find the Doctor.

He was in the console room, reading a book in an old armchair. He closed the book when he heard her and came down the stairs to greet her.

“Did you sleep well?” he asked, a bit too politely. 

“Yes,” she said. She examined the TARDIS controls. “Where are we going today?”

“I thought,” he said carefully, “that we might get you checked out. You know, what with your condition.”

“It's called pregnancy,” said Missy. “If you can cause it then you can certainly say it.”

“Your pregnancy,” he repeated. “Gallifrey's out of the question, but we can take you somewhere else, get a doctor to look at you.”

“Why is Gallifrey ruled out?” she asked, watching him closely.

“You mean apart from the fact that they'd arrest you on sight?”

“Yes, apart from that.” She moved towards him. “You found it, didn't you?”

“Things happened,” he said, vaguely. “Bad things. I don't want to go back for a while.”

“Did they hurt you?” she asked. When he didn't answer she added, “Just yes or no, I don't need details.”

“Yes,” he said. 

“Well,” she said brightly, “let's not go there. Do you know any hospitals that are good with Time Lords?”

He hesitated. “Actually, I thought, perhaps, Martha Jones could -”

“No,” she said, coldly. 

“But she's -”

“No. I'd rather go to the Sisterhood of Karn, and you know how much I hate them.” 

He walked over to the console. “I'll see where the TARDIS takes us.”

“You're going to trust my health – and our baby's health - to blind chance?”

“It's not blind chance, she's good at finding things. Look, you can try the telepathic circuits, see what she comes up with.” 

“Your TARDIS hates me,” she pointed out. “I turned her into a Paradox Machine, remember?”

“That was ages ago,” he said, waving a hand. “I'm sure she's forgiven you by now.”

Missy moved round the console to the telepathic interface and, gingerly, placed her hands on it. She slipped her fingers into the warm sticky mess, and tried not to think of destruction. 

The TARDIS spun into flight, time rotor rising and falling steadily. As soon as the ship was moving, Missy took her hands from its innards and wiped them on her skirt. “She'll probably take me to abattoir,” she said, bitterly.

“I'm sure she won't,” said the Doctor, trying to keep the peace. 

Soon enough a vworping sound and a thud indicated that the ship had landed. 

“Abattoir,” said Missy, as they walked to the outer doors of the ship.

“Hospital,” said the Doctor.

“Shall we place bets?” 

The Doctor ignored her, opened the door, and stepped out. Missy followed him.

Smoke filled the air along with the cloying scent of decay. Something whooshed overhead and exploded in the distance. 

“This isn't a hospital,” said the Doctor, ever-observant. “This looks like a battlefield.”

“Gosh, do you think so?” she replied, sarcastically. She turned and re-entered the TARDIS. 

“Are you sure you thought about a hospital?” he asked, following her inside.

“I was thinking happy thoughts,” she said, annoyed. She kicked the console. 

“Don't kick her,” he said automatically. “Happy thoughts as in... violence?”

“Don't blame me for your ship's navigational failings!”

“I'm just trying to understand what went wrong.” He seemed disturbed by something.

Missy knew what he was thinking. “I'm not an inherently terrible person. I didn't magic us to a warzone because I'm incurably evil.”

“Did I say that?”

“You were thinking it. Loudly.” She tried to look offended, but she was worried that she had accidentally betrayed herself. Almost without being aware of it she reached for the vortex manipulator on her wrist. 

The Doctor saw her move. “Don't,” he said. “Don't run away.”

“I'm not running away. But I'm also not staying here to be insulted.” 

“Please,” he said, unwittingly convincing Missy that leaving was temporarily the best option. She would make him regret this, she'd leave him to stew for a while in his own guilt. Without another word she set the manipulator to take her back to her own TARDIS.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Missy meets an old friend and is reuinited with the Doctor.

Missy sat at the bar drinking something pink, non-alcoholic, and boring. It was three weeks since she had last seen the Doctor, though she knew he'd find her eventually. Still, time apart was supposed to be good for couples. 

“What's a beautiful woman like you doing sitting here all alone?” asked a familiar voice. 

Missy turned her head to look at the speaker, and recognised him at once. Handsome Jack, the Freak, the Fixed Point. The man who pined after the Doctor and was never going to get him. She smiled even as her temporal senses started screaming to her that something about him was _wrong_ and that she should move away. She ignored the itch at the top of her brain-stem and said, “I'm just waiting to be swept off my feet.”

Jack grinned and sat down on the stool next to hers. “Nice accent.”

“Thanks, I got it from a friend.”

“You're funny,” he said, and Missy tried to decide how best to proceed. Seduction wasn't on the agenda, because she couldn't bring herself to let him touch her and in any case the Doctor would complain if she bedded one of his pets under false pretences. Still, she could amuse herself for a while at the Freak's expense.

“Don't you know who I am?” she asked.

“Should I?” he replied. “If you're a celebrity I've been a bit out of the loop, so...”

“Not a celebrity, not as such. I was involved in politics for a while, but it didn't stick. Too dull, too frustrating.”

He nodded. “A woman like you needs some excitement in her life.”

“Absolutely. It's like in that old song. How does it go again? _Do you hear the drums, Fernando?”_ she sang softly. She reached out and tapped out her old rhythm on his the back of his hand.

His eyes widened and he pulled his hand away quickly. “No way.”

She smiled and nodded. “Don't make a scene, Jack, or I might have to hurt someone.”

He stared at her as she finished her drink calmly. “You died. I saw you die. Lucy shot you.”

“I got better,” she said with a shrug. 

“Does the Doctor know that you're alive?” he asked.

“Yes, he does. Don't worry, he and I are on quite good terms recently. You could say we're very intimate, even.” She laughed at his expression. “Oh, don't look at me like that, I'm sure you suspected. Even you're not that blind.”

His look of betrayal was priceless, it really was. Well, she had more shocks in store for the Freak. She stood from her seat and let him see her pregnant state. 

“Yes,” she said as he stared, “I'm eating for two now. Or possibly more than two, who knows, eh?”

Well, that silenced him. She waited for a few moments to see if he'd do anything amusing, but he was apparently too upset to respond. With a laugh she activated her vortex manipulator and left him at the bar, alone and appalled.

 

That had been entertaining. She'd have to tell the Doctor all about it when she saw him again. She hadn't, after all, actually done anything bad or hurt his friend physically, so the story was probably safe to relate without him reacting badly. It occurred to her that she might want to portray herself as the victim of the Freak's unthinking prejudice. She had been wronged, because she had changed and he hadn't been able to accept that. Yes, that was a good idea, she could have fun with that. Who would have thought that pregnancy could be so amusing?

She could feel it now, growing inside her, a parasite that was no longer entirely unwelcome. For the past few weeks she had been able to sense a half-formed presence in her mind, something _not-quite_ , something that was more potential than concrete existence. She could ignore it for the most part, and it was a lot less intrusive than the drumming had been. 

The drums, yes. She didn't like to remember those days, the years of unrelenting noise and the associated madness. She considered herself to be quite sane these days. She knew what she was doing, she was completely lucid in her thoughts and actions. Other people might look at the things she did and say “Oh, she must be mad,” but she knew that she wasn't – madness was just a way for other people to comfort themselves with the belief that _they_ wouldn't do these things. Maybe they wouldn't, but sanity or otherwise had nothing to do with it. 

She sat down in the overstuffed armchair that she kept in her console room. Even with a Time Lord's superior physiology the pregnancy was starting to tire her and rob her of some physical strength. She slept more now, ate more, became dehydrated much more easily. It was strange to be held to a schedule for something – she couldn't just jump forwards until after the birth to see what came out. 

She had good genes, she was quite sure of that, but the Doctor's contribution was a little more... unreliable. He had always had trouble with regeneration, for example, and bad eyesight had affected more than one of his bodies. It wouldn't do for the Mistress to bear something weak and needy, she'd have to make sure the child was brought up properly to offset any genetic disadvantages.

She leaned back in the chair and closed her eyes. After a while she laid a hand over her expanded abdomen, the very picture of a protective mother. 

 

It took another two weeks for the Doctor to turn up, repentant and full of apologies. Missy accepted his contrition graciously, and moved some of her things from her own TARDIS to his. She wanted company at least for a while, and she was curious to see how much domesticity the two of them could handle.

He gave her the same room as before, but that night she followed him into his. She deigned to let him touch her, rewarded him with kisses and moans. It was peculiar, this kind of affection. Usually when they had sex at least one of them was angry, and normally she would scratch and bite as a matter of course. He seemed grateful for the change, and Missy played along as the repentant psychopath who now understood the true meaning of love. It would take more than this to convince him she had changed for the better, but it was a good start. 

While he slept she took the opportunity to examine his bedroom. She read the titles on the spines of the books in the single tall bookcase, silently mocked him for the stuffed panda on a chair in the corner, and opened the wardrobe to see just how much velvet he was wearing these days. She recognised the tweed jacket as belonging to the previous regeneration, the one she had watched without him ever being aware of her scrutiny. 

She didn't hear the Doctor approach until he said, “Are you aware of the concept of privacy?”

She didn't turn her head. “You invited me in, you must have known I would take a look round.” She pulled out a long black dress with too many sequins on. “This isn't your size,” she said, holding it up against herself.

He took took the hanger from her hand and tucked the dress back into the wardrobe. “That belonged to a friend.”

“A friend?” She looked at him with a raised eyebrow. 

He hesitated for a moment. “A wife,” he admitted. 

“I know,” she said. “I just wanted to make you say it. She must have been quite buxom,” she added, examining another dress as it hung in the wardrobe.

“Possibly,” he replied, as though he had no idea.

“I don't mind, you know. You can indulge your little mayfly-fetish as much as you want, just as long as you remember who loved you first.”

“That's almost sweet,” he said, surprise evident.

“Isn't it? I'm quite capable of affection and romance, actually.”

“I'm starting to see another side to you,” he said, touching her arm. “I like it.”

“We weren't always on different paths, Doctor. We were quite the pair at one time.” She tried to look hopeful. “We could be again.”

“I'd like that,” he said, but he still seemed wary. 

She pulled him close and kissed him tenderly. She could keep up the affection until he broke, it wouldn't be too difficult. “Let's go back to bed,” she said, taking his hand and leading him away from the dead clothes in the wardrobe. 

She felt that he was close to breaking, and that she'd convince him of her good intentions eventually. She could absolutely do this.


	4. Chapter 4

Missy lay on the sofa with a bowl of popcorn in her hands and her feet in the Doctor's lap. They had spent an embarrassingly long time binge-watching his _Buffy_ and _Angel_ DVDs together, and it seemed to have eased a bit of tension. Maybe the Doctor didn't trust her completely yet, but a shared love of 90s urban vampire fiction had gone a long way towards winning him over. Well, that and the fact that she hadn't killed anyone recently. 

As they reached the end of the fourth season of _Angel_ , Missy poked him with her foot. “I'm not watching the fifth season,” she told him. “I might watch the puppet episode, but that's all.”

“But it's a marathon,” he said, “we have to watch it right to the end.”

“No,” she said, firmly, “I refuse to watch Spike with a soul in him.”

That had been a point of argument while watching the later episodes of _Buffy_. Missy didn't approve of turning villains good, which had upset the Doctor for obvious reasons but there were limits to what she was willing to do to convince him of her new, less evil, state of mind. “It encouraged the fandom woobiefication of Spike,” she went on, “and I hate that.”

The Doctor stared at her. “When were you ever in a fandom?”

She gestured vaguely. “The 90s weren't very exciting for me. I hardly saw you at all, for one thing. I had to find other interests. Anyway,” she said, getting back to her point, “I refuse to watch any more of this, so you'll have to find something else for us to do.”

“Actually,” he said, carefully, “I was thinking it might be time for you to see a doctor.”

“I can see a Doctor, and he's annoying me.” She threw a bit of popcorn at him

“Missy, we don't even know when the baby's due. What if we go somewhere and you go into labour and we can't get you to a hospital?”

“Hmm,” she said, thinking it over.

“You wouldn't have any access to painkillers,” he pointed out. 

“That's true.” She put her bowl down on the floor and sat up with some effort. She was already quite large. “I suppose you're right, we should get me looked at by someone with a medical degree. Someone who isn't Martha Jones,” she added in case he made any stupid suggestions.

“How do you feel about cat-nuns?” he asked.

“Are they Furries?”

“No, they're actual humanoid cats. I had some problems with them before, but I'm sure most of them are nice.” He nudged her. “Remember that adventure we had with those Cheetah People? You were all growly and we tried to kill each other?”

“You left me for dead on that planet,” she said dryly.

He waved a hand dismissively. “I knew you'd get away somehow. You always do.” He helped her to stand. “It's one of the things I like about you. You're resourceful.”

“Fine, we'll go and see these cat-nuns of yours. But if I see any Furries, I'm leaving.”

 

Missy was lying on an examining table with a cat-slash-nun-slash-nurse waving instruments at her. 

“Well?” she prompted when she felt sufficient examination time had elapsed.

“It might be twins,” said the nurse, with a waver of uncertainty.

Missy almost shot upright. “What!”

The Doctor calmed her with a hand on her arm. “Two hearts,” the Doctor told the nurse, “is normal for our species.”

“Ah. Sorry,” said the nurse, “there isn't a lot in the textbooks about Time Lords.” She looked at Missy. “Everything looks good as far as I can tell.”

Missy knew she should show interest in the baby, but she found she didn't have to push herself too hard to be curious. “Boy or a girl?”

“A girl,” said the nurse with a smile. 

“When can we expect her to arrive?” asked Missy.

The lights went out and the equipment in the room shut down. There was still enough daylight coming through the tall glass windows to be able to see, but the sudden silence was disconcerting.

“Sorry about this,” said the nurse, “sometimes we get these power cuts. I'll go and see what's going on.” She left the room with a hurried step.

The Doctor took Missy's hand and squeezed it gently. “This really is actually happening. We're seriously going to have a baby.”

“Well, obviously,” said Missy, pushing herself up on her elbows. 

“I know, it's just... I couldn't quite imagine it happening before. I thought you'd change your mind or run off and leave me. Us having a family didn't really seem plausible.”

If he had anything more to add Missy didn't find out because he was interrupted by screaming sounds from down the corridor. The Doctor ran to the door and then stopped, looking back at her. “What about you? Are you -”

Missy shooed him with a hand. “Go, go.” When he left the room she pulled herself upright and then hopped down heavily off the examining table. She set off in the direction the Doctor had taken, moving at a slower pace and with more effort. She wasn't going to miss being pregnant, that was for sure.

She found him hiding behind an ugly sculpture in an unfashionable style. She slid into the shadows beside him and looked across the hospital waiting-room. 

“Judoon,” he whispered. 

“I can see that,” she said. “I can't stand Judoon. Brutish thugs, the lot of them.”

“Not all of them,” he said, but he didn't sound very convinced. 

“Most of them, then. Looks like they have hostages,” she said, trying to sound concerned for the safety of innocent bystanders.

The Doctor nodded. “They haven't issued any demands yet, but... what are you doing?”

“I'm going to ask them what they want,” she said. She ignored the Doctor's hissed protests, stepping out from her hiding place and walking boldly towards the aliens. 

“Hey,” she called, cheerfully, “space-rhinos! What are you up to?”

The nearest Judoon raised a weapon at her and barked in a graceless language.

“Now, now,” she said, still heading towards them, “would you want your mother to know that you use language like that?”

“Halt, or you will be killed.”

Missy stopped in front of the probably-leader and looked up at him confidently. “Perhaps I can help. You obviously want something, and I'm going to assume that the thing you want is in this building, so maybe I can arrange some sort of trade.”

The Judoon stared down at her. “You will give us the drugs.”

“Which drugs?”

“All of the drugs.”

“Why do the Shadow Proclamation need drugs?” she asked.

“We no longer work for the Shadow Proclamation.” The Judoon reached out and grabbed her by the arm. “You will be a hostage.”

Missy didn't show a hint of fear, but she knew she might have gone too far. If anything happened to her baby then she'd... Missy stopped in her mental tracks, shocked by the vehemence of her own thoughts. Well, she reasoned to herself, it was _her_ baby and people didn't get to take things from her, even if she didn't especially want those things.

Her thoughts were interrupted by the Doctor calling across the room. “Let her go.”

Missy looked round with an exaggerated sigh. “Don't worry, dear, I know what I'm doing.”

“Put down the sonic device or your mate will be executed.”

Missy felt the barrel of a gun against her neck. “Don't,” she said to the Doctor, “there's only one of me and you don't know what the consequences will be.”

To her disappointment and relief, he lowered the sonic screwdriver and dropped it onto the floor. It clattered against the linoleum and rolled away from him. He stood, defenceless, in the middle of the room. 

Well, then, it was Missy's turn to save the day. She thought fast. She wasn't carrying much in her pockets, and she probably couldn't get to any of the potentially-useful items without getting herself killed in the process anyway. What did she have that she could use to her advantage?

Without any warning, she clutched at her stomach and groaned loudly.

The Judoon holding the gun against her looked down to see what was happening.

Missy cried out again. “I think I'm going into labour!” Then she pushed her weight against her distracted guard and tugged the weapon from his grasp. She hit him in the face with it and then pointed it at him when he fell.

“You will not harm me,” he grunted.

“Won't I?” She fiddled with the controls without taking her eyes off him. She could feel the Doctor staring at her, and she wondered who he was more afraid of. She pulled the trigger. 

A loud, high-pitched sound filled the room. The Judoon clutched at their ears, most of them dropping their weapons as they fell towards the ground, their tiny but very effective eardrums vibrating at a frequency designed to disorient them. 

The Doctor appeared at her side. “Missy -”

“I'm not killing them,” she said, calmly, “it just hurts like hell. Get those hostages out of the way and then call for help.” She glanced at him when he didn't move. “Go on, I've got everything under control here.”

He was smiling, with genuine warmth and not a trace of doubt. Missy realised, slightly dazed, that she had proved herself to him, finally. She had taken the harder, better path and she had won him over with her efforts.

The only thing spoiling her victory was that she hadn't intended to win like this. She had helped out, risked her own life, saved people, and she had done it almost without thinking of using it to her own advantage.

She was turning into him.


	5. Chapter 5

As they walked back to the TARDIS Missy examined her own motivations and decided that the Doctor was a bad influence. She should have realised that someone so annoyingly good might have an effect on her if she spent to much time around him, especially in her current hormonal condition. She glared at his back as she followed him through the hospital corridors towards the cupboard they had parked in. 

He kept talking, praising her bravery and intelligence, which under normal circumstances she'd be very happy about but right now it felt like he was mocking her. 

“Can we talk about something else now?” she asked when they got to the TARDIS. 

He looked surprised. “You want to talk about something other than how awe-inspiring you are? Are you feeling alright?”

No. No, she was not feeling alright. She was feeling disconcerted and confused. She could see a nightmarish future of goodness and kindness, of joining Greenpeace and the RSPCA. It was one thing to _pretend_ to be able to change, it was quite another thing for it to actually happen without her even being aware of it. 

Well, she was aware now. Very aware. She would have to be careful from now on, would have to guard against better instincts and selfless actions. She didn't trust herself, even if the Doctor apparently did. _Especially_ if he did.

“I'm tired,” she said, pushing open the TARDIS doors and making her way into the ship. “I think I'll have a nap before dinner.”

He didn't argue with her, and she sulked off to her own room to spend some time alone.

 

“We should start thinking of names,” said the Doctor as he sat down across from her at the kitchen table. 

Missy prodded her lasagne with a fork. “Names?”

“For the baby.”

“I was going to call her Serendipity. That's a lovely name for a girl.”

“Until she finds out what it means, anyway.” He shook his head. “Go for something simple, something classic. Like -”

Missy cut him off. “If the next word out of your mouth is the name of one of your pets, I'm going to be very upset.”

“Friends,” he said, patiently. “They're not pets, they're friends.”

“Lesser beings that you keep around for company and then they die and you have to get a new one. Sounds like a pet to me.”

“Anyway,” he said, steering the conversation away from the topic, “you can't call her a happy accident. You'll have to think of something else.”

“I don't want to think of something else. I'm the one who has to gestate her, I think I should get to name her.”

“Just pick a name that isn't going to make her feel unwanted.”

“ _Happy_ accident,” said Missy. “I wish my parents had called me something like that, instead of -”

“This isn't about you,” he said. “It's about our daughter and I have no intention of calling her Serendipity.”

“You can call her Fred for all I care,” said Missy, annoyed, “it's not up to you.”

The Doctor shook his head. “Look at us. She's not even born yet and we're arguing about how to raise her.” 

Missy hadn't really thought that far ahead, but she wasn't going to admit that. She had accepted that there was going to be a baby at some point, but she had left the details intentionally vague in her own mind. He was probably right, there would be decades of arguments to come.

“Fine,” she said, deciding to see what it felt like to compromise. “What about Poppea?”

The Doctor raised his ridiculous eyebrows. “After your mother?”

“It's a good Gallifreyan name, I'd hardly name her after _your_ mother, would I?”

“My mother -”

“I mean your real mother,” she said, quietly.

The Doctor stared at her. “I don't know what that's supposed to mean.”

“I've known since San Francisco,” said Missy. “The Eye of Harmony in your TARDIS was locked and only human eyes could open it. So,” she shrugged, “I know.”

“Okay,” was all he said. He looked a bit like a rabbit caught in headlights.

“It does feel good to finally get that out in the open,” she said.

“You never mentioned it.”

“Why would I? When would be the right time? On the Valiant when I'd turned you in a tiny little goblin man? Trust me, that was hilarious enough already.”

The Doctor cleared his throat. “I think Poppea's a nice name,” he said, lifting the teapot and pouring some into his cup.

“Then that's what we'll call her,” said Missy. She smiled at him and after a while he smiled back.

 

With the name argument settled, they started preparing for the birth. This mostly involved Missy watching the Doctor try to assemble IKEA furniture in the room they had chosen for a nursery. 

She flicked through an Argos catalogue idly as he began his third attempt at putting together a cot. “How many times are you going to try that before you give up and get the TARDIS to grow one?” she asked without much malice.

The Doctor knelt on the floor among cot-parts and sheets of instructions. “I can do this,” he insisted. “It's just a three-dimensional jigsaw puzzle, really.”

“So why is it taking so long?”

“I just need something to do,” he admitted. “You've got the gestation covered, I feel a bit left out.”

“Do _you_ want to gestate her?

“Would you like me to?” he asked.

Missy was quite touched by the offer, but she didn't want to tell him that. “No,” she said, “I can cope.” She went back to reading her catalogue, humming contentedly to herself.

“I'm sure these things used to be easier to construct,” grumbled the Doctor.

“Look,” she said, holding up the Argos catalogue so he could see it, “they have those aliens with the televisions in their stomachs. Little dolls of them. We should get one for Poppea.”

The Doctor glanced at the page in question. “If you think she'd like them. I always thought they were a bit frightening.”

“Nonsense,” said Missy, “we'll bring her up properly so that she isn't afraid of anything.”

“You know,” he said, abandoning his work and standing. “I was worried, for a long time, that you wouldn't want to look after her.”

Missy was quite offended even though she had thought the same thing quite often. “I was a wonderful father, I'm sure I'll be an equally good mother. Anyway,” she added, “what about you?”

“Me?”

“How long has it been since you were responsible for an infant? How do I know you won't get bored of her the way you get bored of everything else?”

“I spent twenty-four years in one place, not even that long ago. I had a job. I lived in a house.”

This was news to Missy. “You had a job?”

He nodded. “I taught Home Economics at the local college. I was quite good at it, it was mostly just cookery and a bit of sewing.”

“Were you stuck there? Had the TARDIS broken down? You should have contacted me, I'd have come to rescue you.”

“I didn't need rescuing,” he said. “I was happy.”

“Ah,” said Missy, “the buxom wife with her clothes still in your wardrobe.”

“Yes.” He looked at her like he was daring her to be jealous. 

Missy didn't rise to the bait. “Fine, I accept that you probably won't sell our daughter on ebay when the novelty value wears off.”

“We can do this,” he said, “it's nothing we haven't done before.”

“That's true.” She nodded towards the mess in the middle of the room. “Do you want me to help you with that cot?”

“No, thanks for the offer but I think I've almost cracked it.”

Missy watched him return to his task and wondered if they really could manage to raise a child. It was a long time since either of them had been a parent, after all. She was surprised to find herself worrying about the future, when all she had set out to do was hurt the Doctor. Maybe this whole plan had been a mistake, maybe she had got into something she couldn't easily get out of. Maybe she was going soft.

She didn't let herself follow that line of thought for too long. She knew what she was doing, she was in control. Soon enough the baby would be born and then she would have any number of opportunities to exploit the Doctor's weaknesses. 

She allowed herself a private little smile – so far so good.


	6. Chapter 6

A sudden agony jolted Missy awake. She gasped, moaned painfully, and turned to wake the Doctor. “It's time,” she told him as he opened his eyes.

“What's time?” he asked sleepily. “We're in a time-machine, we can do it later.” He closed his eyes again and Missy hit his arm. “Ow!”

“The baby's coming,” she said. 

He sat up, suddenly alert. “Are you sure?”

“Of course I'm sure!” She got out of bed with some difficulty and stepped into her slippers. “These things always happen at the most inconvenient times,” she said, pulling on her dressing-gown.

The Doctor seemed stunned by this turn of events. Missy shook her head at him. “You didn't expect her to stay in the womb until she hit puberty, did you?”

“No, but -”

“Get your clothes on and get us to a hospital,” she snapped.

 

Missy stepped out into biting-cold air with the Doctor follow a few paces behind. The TARDIS had brought them to Earth, parking herself outside a small detached house. Snow covered the ground outside and there was a Christmas tree in the window.

“This isn't a hospital,” said Missy, stating the obvious.

“I'm sure the TARDIS knows what she's doing.” He stepped up to the door and read the name on it. “Ah.”

“What?” asked Missy, her voice colder than the weather.

“This is where Martha and Mickey live.”

Missy turned back towards the TARDIS. “I'm not letting that woman near me.”

The Doctor caught her arm and turned her back towards the house. “She's a good person, she won't hurt you.”

Missy stood her metaphorical ground even as the Doctor pulled her gently towards the door. “Martha Jones hates me! She's not going to help me, she wants me to die!”

“She's a doctor, she has to help you,” he said, trying to calm her down.

The door of the house opened. 

“Mickey!” said the Doctor enthusiastically.

Mickey looked at the pair of Time Lords and then at the blue box at the bottom of the garden. “I assume you're not here to sing carols.”

Martha appeared beside him in the doorway. “What's going on?” 

The Doctor waved at her and Missy scowled. 

“She's having a baby,” said the Doctor. “As in she's having it right now.”

“Oh God,” said Mickey, “we're trapped in a nativity play.”

“I'll call an ambulance,” said Martha.

“No ambulances,” said the Doctor, “she's not human.”

Martha looked at Missy again. “Have we met?” she asked, a slight frown across her features.

“Not recently,” said Missy.

“It's complicated,” said the Doctor. 

“You'd better come in,” said Martha. “Mickey, can you boil some water? And get the clean towels from the airing cupboard.”

Missy was bustled into the house and up the stairs to the spare bedroom. The Doctor helped her get settled on the bed as Martha went to fetch supplies. 

“As soon as she finds out who I am she's going to kill me,” Missy hissed. 

“She won't,” said the Doctor. “She's nice, she's not...” he trailed off.

“She's not me, is that what you're getting at? I'm evil and I expect other people to be as horrible as I am?”

“Missy, please, just trust me even if you don't trust Martha. I won't let anyone hurt you.”

Missy was prevented from making a clever and pithy reply by the pain of another contraction.

Martha returned with a medical bag. “Right,” she said, rolling up her sleeves, “tell me anything I need to know about Time Lords and how they give birth.”

 

It took hours. Missy screamed and swore and at one point knocked the Doctor out with a well-aimed punch. But eventually the pain stopped and Martha handed Missy a small infant wrapped in a Star Wars bath-towel.

“She's so beautiful,” said the Doctor.

“She'll do,” said Missy.

Martha touched the Doctor's arm. “Can I have a word with you outside?”

“Is there something wrong?” asked Missy, suddenly alert.

“The baby's fine,” said Martha. “This isn't about her.”

“Is it about me?” asked Missy.

Martha looked at the Doctor and then back to Missy. “Actually, yes. I know who you are.”

Missy held her baby closer. “If you lay a finger on her I'll kill you.”

“I wouldn't,” said Martha. “You should know that.”

“Of course,” she replied sarcastically, “you're a saint.”

Martha rolled her eyes and then turned to the Doctor. “I'm going to have to call UNIT.”

“But she -”

“She raised the dead as Cybermen, or have you forgotten about that?”

“I haven't,” said Missy. “It was a great plan. One of my best.”

Martha left the room and the Doctor followed her. Missy was left alone with the newborn, which struck her as a potential oversight on their part. Not that she would have handed the baby over anyway. No, this child was hers and she was feeling quite possessive right now. But she was in no condition to climb out the window and run to the TARDIS, so she'd have to think quickly if anyone tried to take Poppea from her.

The door opened again and Martha's husband came in. “They sent me to keep an eye on you,” he said, leaning against the wall and crossing his arms.

Missy listened carefully, and could just make out the sounds of an argument downstairs. Well, at least the Doctor was standing up for her, that was something. 

She looked at her guard. “Are you the idiot?” she asked, sweetly.

Mickey laughed. “He can call me that all he wants, it won't make it true.”

Ah, self-esteem. Missy fancied herself quite the expert at taking that from people. On the other hand she had already pushed these people quite far with her very presence and if she wanted to retain her freedom she might have to rely on their good graces. 

She swallowed her pride and said, “Yes, he does underestimate people on occasion.”

“I don't need his approval,” said Mickey. “I don't need yours either.” 

Missy scowled and turned her attention to her baby. She seemed small but not worryingly so, and her grey eyes were wide and alert. 

“Turn your back,” said Missy.

“Why?” asked Mickey. “If you're going to try escaping -”

“I need to feed my baby,” said Missy, with an easy dignity, “and I don't want strange humans staring at my mammary glands.”

“I promise I won't look,” he said. 

Missy tutted, rearranged her top, and raised Poppea to her breast. 

“Can all Time Lords do that?” asked Mickey, who, true to his word, wasn't looking at her.

“Breastfeed?”

“Change sex.” 

“Oh, that. Yes, we can. It's not difficult, I expect even the Doctor will manage it one of these days.”

“Did you do it on purpose?” 

“Does it matter?” she asked, wearily.

“I suppose not.”

“You can look now, I've finished.”

Mickey turned his gaze back towards her. “What if you were married to someone, and then they -”

“We don't fit into little boxes,” she said, witheringly. “Neither do humans, for that matter, but it'll take you long enough to realise that. No wonder everyone looks down on your species. You're so... narrow.”

“Thanks,” said Mickey, pleasantly.

“You're welcome,” said Missy. 

 

The Doctor returned looking rather tired. He nodded to Mickey, who left the room without bothering to say goodbye to Missy. 

“Well?” 

“We're leaving,” he said. “I promised I'd take you away from Earth and that I wouldn't let you harm anyone. I had to pull some strings and burn quite a few bridges.”

“I'm sure I'm very grateful,” said Missy. She rose from the bed, Poppea in her arms. “Don't look so sorry for yourself, there are plenty of other planets in the universe.”

“I've never been exiled _from_ Earth before,” he said. 

“It's probably just as well,” she told him. “If I spend another day here I think I'll go quite mad. Anyway, we have a daughter to take care of, that should keep us busy for a while.”

He held the door open for her. “Where will we go?”

“Anywhere we want,” said Missy. 

“Except Earth.”

“Yes,” she agreed, “except Earth.” She kissed his cheek. “I never did like this planet anyway.”


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> okay i know it's been like an entire year but here's a new bit and i have some plans for more bits as well

“Where do you want to go?” asked the Doctor.

Missy looked up from where she sat with Poppea in her arms. “I'll let you choose. As long as it's not the Eye of Orion, it's boring there and it smells like Wales.”

“Okay,” he said, but he didn't move to set the controls.

Missy thought he might need a push. “You could just go back in time, you know. You can still go to Earth in the past, it's not like they'd know.”

He shook his head. “I promised, I gave them my word.”

“And what's that worth?” she asked, unimpressed.

“Rather more than yours,” he said, but there wasn't much bite in the retort.

Missy held the baby up. “Can you take her for a while? She's surprisingly heavy.”

The Doctor crossed the room and carefully lifted Poppea from her mother's arms. He looked at Missy. “She's amazing,” he said, bouncing their baby gently. “She's beautiful.”

“She's a baby,” said Missy, “they're all basically identical.”

The Doctor looked a bit hurt, which usually cheered Missy up but she wasn't really in the mood. “Don't you like her?”

Missy waved a hand vaguely. “Of course, but I'm not going to inflate her ego by cooing over her when she hasn't done anything.”

“She doesn't have an ego,” he scoffed, “she's just a baby.” He looked down at their daughter. “Hey, she's smiling at me!” He moved to let Missy see the new expression.

“It's just a reflex,” said Missy. “It doesn't mean anything.” 

The Doctor was not to be dissuaded. “She's happy,” he insisted. “She likes me.”

Missy yawned. “I'm tired,” she said. “Just park your TARDIS in the vortex and we can think about destinations later.” She held out her hands and the Doctor passed Poppea back to her. The girl was still smiling, and Missy felt an unwelcome urge to smile back at her. She repressed it with a slight shudder. “I'm going to get some sleep,” she announced. “I'll put Poppea in the nursery, in case you want to tell her how wonderful she is.” 

 

Missy woke when the Doctor slid into bed beside her. 

“Sorry,” he said quietly as she stirred, “I didn't mean to wake you.”

“I was having a great dream,” she lied. “You ruined it.”

“Sorry,” he repeated. He shifted towards her and Missy didn't complain when he put his arms around her. He was silent for a few more moments and then he said, in a rather dazed tone, “We had a baby.”

“I noticed,” said Missy, leaning her head against his chest. “Get some sleep, you'll probably need it.”

“Okay.”

Missy closed her eyes again and let her mind wander until she fell asleep.

 

She stood beside Poppea's cot and bent to look down at the infant. She looked around to make sure the Doctor wasn't nearby and then smiled at her daughter. “You're easily prettier than any of his other children,” she whispered. She gently stroked the baby's smooth skin and laughed quietly when Poppea snatched at her fingers with tiny hands.

Missy pulled her hand away quickly when she heard footsteps moving towards the nursery. She straightened up and turned to greet the Doctor. “I thought I heard a noise,” she said by way of excuse, “but it was probably just the pipes.”

The Doctor didn't look convinced. “Were you bonding with her?” he asked. 

“Don't be ridiculous,” she snapped back at him. “I don't need to bond with her, and I refuse to get soppy about her when she can't even control her own bladder.”

“Missy, she's your child, you're allowed to care about her.”

She made an offended noise. “I never said I didn't care about her. Of course I care about her, she's mine and that makes her important.” 

The Doctor shook his head. “I don't know what I was expecting. I suppose I thought you'd be more... affectionate. I know you're capable of it, I'm certain of that.”

Missy shrugged. “I am what I am. You'd better get used to that, we're going to be looking after our daughter together for a very long time.” 

She felt him staring after her as she left the room.

 

 

“It's your turn,” said Missy when Poppea's cries woke her.

“It was my turn last time,” said the Doctor. “And the time before, and the time before that.”

Missy grunted and pulled a pillow over her head to shut out at least some of the noise. “You should never have turned off the soundproofing,” she said.

“We need to be able to hear her,” said the Doctor, rising from the bed. 

“You're just teaching her that crying will get your attention. She'll never stop if you keep running after her like this.”

“She's probably hungry,” he said. 

Missy moved the pillow from her face so that she could glare at him. “And will she starve to death if she has to wait until morning?”

“I don't really want to find out, do you?” He left the room without waiting for an answer, and Missy scowled at empty space before turning over to try to get back to sleep. 

 

“You look terrible,” she said when the Doctor walked into the kitchen in the morning. “You should try sleeping a bit more.”

He stopped and stared at her. 

She shrugged. “I was only joking.”

“It wasn't a very good joke,” he said as he headed towards the kettle. 

“If you say so.” She could feel a certain tension in the air. It wasn't quite pleasant, but she was used to the Doctor behaving like this and so there was a certain comfortable familiarity to it. “I'll have two sugars, please.”

The Doctor turned his head long enough to scowl at her. “I didn't offer to make you tea.”

“Yes, but the kettle's on now so you might as well.”

The Doctor switched the kettle off. 

“Spoilsport,” said Missy. “What's bothering you? Is it something you'd like to talk about?” She knew perfectly well what was on his mind, but was enjoying her own pretended ignorance of the matter.

He sat down in the chair opposite hers and looked at her across the kitchen table. “You're not a very good parent,” he said without working up to it.

Missy did her best to look shocked. “How dare you! I was singing to her in the nursery not ten minutes ago.”

“You won't get up at night for her, and you don't like changing her.”

“That's what _you're_ for, surely?”

“You can't just claim all the nice parts of parenting and leave the rest to me,” he said.

“Why ever not?”

“Because it doesn't work like that!” he snapped. 

“I think you'll find that it does,” said Missy. “I may not be an expert on the matter, but I am observant and I'm quite sure that parents don't _actually_ share all the hard work. That's just something that say to other people.”

“Well, we're going to.”

Missy raised one eyebrow slightly. “You think you won't give in before I do when she's crying?”

“It's not about giving in,” he said. “I just think you should put in a bit more effort, that's all” he added, as though this were a reasonable request. 

“Maybe I'm not as good as this as you are,” she offered. “Maybe you're just better with children.”

“I'm not,” he said.

“It's easier for you,” she went on. “You're naturally good.”

“And you're naturally evil?” 

“Yes,” she said. “I'm constantly fighting my own natural urges to just kill everyone and take over the universe.”

“That's ridiculous,” he scoffed. “Neither of us is naturally anything, it's all about the choices we make. You could be good if you wanted. When you were in that fob-watch you made a wonderful human.”

Missy shuddered. “Don't remind me.”

“So I think if you just tried a little harder you'd be an excellent parent.”

“I don't care what you think,” she said, and this was not true in the slightest. “I've been doing my best,” she went on, “but you're going to have to accept that some habits are hard to break.” 

They both looked towards the doorway as the sound of crying floated in from the nursery. Missy stood up. “I'll go and check on her,” she said, “but don't go entertaining any fantasies about selfless motherhood.” 

The Doctor nodded and Missy left the room with her head held high.


	8. Chapter 8

“And then,” said Missy, book in hand, “the big bad wolf killed the three little pigs and ate them all up.”

“That's not how that story usually ends,” said the Doctor from the doorway. 

Missy shrugged. “I improved it.” She smiled down at her daughter, who sat blinking on the floor of the nursery. “Anyway, she's too young to know what any of the words mean, so it doesn't really matter.” She put the book to one side and scooped the infant into her lap. “You like stories, don't you, my dear?”

The Doctor looked quite pleased by this display of conspicuous parenting. He was probably about to praise Missy in some way, but then the lights flickered off and on, and the cloister bell started ringing. 

“What's happening?” asked Missy, holding Poppea in her arms. 

“I don't know,” said the Doctor, heading to the console-room with Missy right behind him. 

The ship tilted violently to one side as they reached the controls. With her arms full there wasn't much Missy could do beyond keeping her balance, but the Doctor had turned the scanner screen towards himself and was frowning at it.

“What's the problem?” asked Missy, catching her breath as the ship stopped rocking. 

“The navigational circuits have stopped working. It might just be a software crash, I'll try rebooting .” 

“Then hurry up before we crash into something!”

He twisted a dial and tapped on a keyboard. The lights flickered again, and the background drone of the TARDIS changed pitch.

Then there a soft but noticeable thud against the walls. Missy looked towards the outer doors. “Did we hit something?”

The Doctor shrugged. “Maybe. We could go outside and check?” He followed her to the doors. “Maybe we should leave the baby in the TARDIS.”

Missy shook her head. “I'm not leaving her on her own, and anyway the safest place for her to be is with us. We're rather unstoppable.”

He nodded and followed her out into a dimly-lit metal corridor. “Artificial gravity and recycled air,” said the Doctor after a few moments of observation.”

“A ship then,” said Missy. “At least we didn't hit anything important.” She turned back towards the TARDIS. “Well, let's be off.”

“We can't leave yet,” said the Doctor. “It takes about two hours to reboot the system.”

“Since when?”

“Since I stopped doing routine maintenance,” he admitted. In an obvious effort to move the conversation from his own ineptitude he said, “We might as well take a look around. It might be interesting.”

Missy tilted her head. “You're just tired of spending all your time in the TARDIS, aren't you? Shall I wait here while you indulge your curiosity?”

“Come with me,” he said. 

“I'm holding a baby,” she pointed out, lifting the child for him to look at.

“So? This can be her first day out. It's not good for her to be cooped up inside all the time.”

Missy thought it over. She considered the odds of the Doctor walking blindly into danger _again_ , and the fact that she was starting to feel a little cabin-sick from staying in the ship all the time. She decided to see what happened. She could always improvise if she had to.

“Okay,” she said, “but if anyone ends up regenerating I'm going to blame you.”

The Doctor picked a direction seemingly at random and Missy followed him down the corridor. They walked for some time before they came across something written on a wall in big red letters.

Missy looked at the words. “That's Basic Sontaran, isn't it?” she said, recognising the graceless language. 

The Doctor nodded. “Which means we're probably on a Sontaran ship.” He looked at Missy and then at the infant in her arms. “We should get back to the TARDIS before we run into any of them.”

They turned and headed back up the corridor, moving quicker now that knew there might be trouble. They turned a corner and stopped when they saw the TARDIS surrounded by armoured aliens. 

“Oh good,” muttered Missy. “Sentient potatoes.” She felt the familiar adrenaline rush of adventure, and held Poppea more tightly. 

“This was your stupid idea,” she said to the Doctor as the Sontarans caught sight of them. 

Without verbal agreement they turned round to run and were stopped by a sheet of thick metal sliding down to block their escape route. Missy swore. 

“Remain where you are!” shouted one of the Sontarans. “All intruders must be interrogated!”

“We're just passing through,” said the Doctor, raising his hands. “We didn't mean to be a bother, we'll call ahead next time to make sure you're accepting visitors.”

Three of the Sontarans moved to trap them where they stood. 

“What is that?” one of them asked, pointing at Poppea.

“A nuclear bomb,” lied Missy, “so you might want to stand back.”

Another Sontaran spoke to the first one. “It's one of their young. They don't even grow them in vats, it's disgusting.”

“Hand it over,” said one of the identical aliens. “We must examine it.”

“No,” said Missy.

It raised a weapon and the Doctor nudged her. “Do as he says.”

“No,” she repeated. “She's mine and no one else is allowed to touch her.” She glared at the assembled Sontarans.

“Missy, he's armed.”

She looked at the Doctor. “I thought you wanted me to care about her? You said I wasn't very good at being a parent, and now you want to hand her over to a potato farm?”

“We'll get her back,” he said, soothingly. “I promise.”

Missy considered her options, and finally nodded, reluctantly allowing the nearest Sontaran to take possession of her child.

“Don't feed her too many sweets,” she said, but she didn't get a reply.

 

 

“We haven't got all day,” said Missy, annoyed. 

The Doctor looked up from his work on the lock. “Stop hurrying me. More haste, less speed.”

“I thought you were supposed to be good with doors.”

“I am!” He returned to his task. “I think I'm nearly done here.”

Missy paced back and forth within their cell. “We don't even know where they've taken her.” She was a bit thrown by how much she was worrying about Poppea, but she'd always had a possessive streak and there probably wasn't much more to it than that.

“We'll find her,” said the Doctor, optimistic as ever. He stood, brushing dust from his trousers. “Are you ready to run?” he asked. 

“I've been ready for hours,” she replied. 

The Doctor pushed the door open and alarms started blaring. 

 

It didn't take them long to find Poppea, lying alone on a metal table in the medical lab. The Doctor rushed over to pick her up, obviously relieved, and Missy looked at the equipment scattered around the room. She picked up a holocube of medical notes, skimmed through it quickly. Nothing too surprising, but then...

“Doctor, look at this.” She turned the display towards him and pointed to a dark shape in the centre. 

“What am I looking at?” he asked, carrying their child in his arms. 

“Her hearts.”

He tilted his head. “Why is the left one beating so slowly?”

“It's weak,” said Missy, ice in her stomach. “The right one's doing most of the work, but that's not going to last forever.” She should have known something like this would happen with the Doctor's inferior genome in play.

“She's dying,” said Missy, flatly. “She's dying and we didn't even know.”


	9. Chapter 9

As soon as they were back in the TARDIS Missy spun to face the Doctor. “We need to go home,” she said, urgently. “We need to go back to Gallifrey.”

“Why?” he asked, though from his expression it was obvious that he knew.

“Are you stupid? We need to fix Poppea, we need to stop her dying. The best place to do that is on Gallifrey. They can help her and it wouldn't even be difficult.”

“There are plenty of hospitals in the universe,” he protested.

“And none of them specialises in Time Lords,” she countered. 

“Look,” he said rather desperately, “we'll think of something else. We always think of something else.”

Missy stared at him. “Why are you being like this? What did they _do_ to you?” she asked. 

“I don't want to talk about it,” he said. He moved towards the console. “I'm going to find somewhere we can take her.”

Missy turned to watch him, baby held tightly in her arms. “Whatever they did, was it so bad that you won't do it again for our daughter?”

He sighed and tried to avoid looking directly at her. “I'd do it for her,” he said, quietly, “and I'd do it for you.”

“Then, please, can we go home?” Missy didn't like the note of whining in her own voice. She was in the right, of course, but she hated having to beg him for anything. It made her feel weak.

Finally he nodded. “All right,” he said, “we'll go home.”

Missy nodded her satisfaction and watched him enter the coordinates.

 

She stepped out of the TARDIS and looked around. “This isn't the capitol,” she said. “I think we're in a barn. Did you put in the wrong destination?”

The Doctor followed her out of the ship. “We're in the dust-lands,” he said, “I thought that might be safer than materialising in the Panopticon. For one thing we're a lot less likely to get arrested.”

Missy sniffed her distaste. “I don't like it.”

“You don't have to like it,” he told her. 

She swallowed her retort as a woman entered the barn through a small door in the side, presumably summoned by the sound of the TARDIS arriving.

“You're not allowed in here,” she started, then stopped in her tracks when she saw the Doctor. “You came back.”

“I need your help,” he said, not bothering to introduce Missy to the newcomer. “Do you still have that old shuttle? Does it still fly?”

The woman nodded. “Yes. What's wrong?”

Missy was feeling rather left out. “Our daughter's very sick,” she said, turning the child in her arms towards the stranger. “We need to get her to a hospital.”

The Doctor looked at Missy. “You should stay here, you're not exactly in their good graces.” 

Missy had to agree that he had a good point. She passed Poppea to him with a reluctance that surprised her. “Don't do anything stupid,” she told him. “Just get her fixed and bring her right back.”

“I will,” he promised. 

“Good,” said Missy, trying not to look too concerned. 

 

Missy looked out across the plains from the window of a large and haphazard-looking house. Her own innate sense of time told her that the Doctor hadn't been gone very long, and she was annoyed to find herself waiting on him once again.

“Here's your tea,” said the woman as she entered the room. 

Missy turned from the window. “I didn't think they had tea out here.”

“We're not savages.”

Missy had her doubts about that, but she nodded politely and sat down at the table to accept her drink.

“He didn't tell me your name,” said the woman, pointedly.

“Missy,” she said. “How do you know the Doctor?” she asked, fairly certain that she already knew. 

The woman shrugged. “I met him a very long time ago,” she said, clearly being deliberately vague, which annoyed Missy intensely.

She wanted to be the one in control of the conversation, and she didn't want to be treated like a stupid outsider. So she said, “This is where the Doctor grew up, isn't it? This is the orphanage.”

The other woman looked uncertain, then nodded. “If that's what you want to call us.”

Missy was still trying to make sense of all this. “How did he end up in an orphanage?” she asked. 

“His parents died,” was the prompt response.

“Yes, but he must have had relatives. Aunts, cousins, grandparents.” Families were extensive on Gallifrey, and nobody would leave a parentless child uncared-for.

The woman didn't reply, but she didn't have to, Missy put everything together on her own. Of course no one would want him, the scandal attached to his birth was still too fresh. Missy was surprised to find that she was angry on the Doctor's behalf. His unusual parentage, which she usually found hilarious, suddenly seemed tainted with sadness.

“Well,” she said, lightly, “it doesn't really matter. He probably enjoys having a tragic backstory.” She sipped her tea and tried not to care too much. It was surprisingly difficult. 

“And you,” said the woman, “how did you meet him?”

“Oh, it's not very interesting,” said Missy. “We met at the Academy. We shared a room in first year. He used to cry a lot,” she added, just to shame him. 

“He's remarkable,” said the woman. “We're very proud of him.”

Missy thought that this didn't mean very much in the dust-lands. They'd be proud of a dog that could roll over. She kept that to herself and nodded politely.

 

She didn't run to the Doctor when he finally returned. She kept her cool in front of an audience and walked calmly towards him as he got out of the shuttle. “Well?”

“She's fine,” he said, handing Poppea to her. “You're right, it wasn't difficult.”

Missy examined the infant in her arms, noted the tiny line of new scar-tissue over her hearts. She kissed the girl's forehead and hugged her close. “Of course I was right,” she said aloud.

“We probably shouldn't hang around,” said the Doctor. “I tried to be discreet but I might have been noticed. Neither of us is especially welcome on this planet.”

Missy nodded. “We don't want to outstay our welcome.” She glanced over at the woman from the orphanage. “Thanks,” she said, not really meaning it. “Let's go home,” she said to the Doctor. “Let's go back to the TARDIS.”


	10. Chapter 10

Missy lay on her back staring up at the ceiling. Her mind was full of thoughts that were keeping her awake. She was worried that she was changing, actually changing not just a pretence that she had full control over. What if she was turning good? 

She looked sideways at the Doctor, who didn't seem to be having any trouble sleeping. Sometimes she really hated him, and other times she... didn't. 

She closed her eyes in case that would help. She tried a bit of self-hypnosis. Finally she sighed, turned onto her side and tried to shake the Doctor awake. 

“Hey,” she said as she nudged him, “can we have sex?”

He opened his eyes. “Now?”

“Yes, now. Are you too tired? I thought it might help me get to sleep.”

He took a moment to answer, then he said, “I suppose we might as well.” He shifted across the bed towards her, and she pulled him over her. 

Missy hesitated. “Can we do it your way?” she asked.

He raised his eyebrows. “My way?”

“You know...” she tried to find the right word and settled on, “kindly.” He looked confused so she went on. “I just want to see what it's like when I'm not trying to hurt you.”

He was obviously surprised. “No biting?”

“No biting,” she agreed. “And I won't scratch you or hit you.”

“Okay,” he said, looking like he doubted her powers of self-restraint. Missy felt his hand reach under her nightdress, trailing up her thigh to her sex and then stroking gently. He kissed her throat where she liked it best, and Missy rewarded him with a contented sigh.

She didn't usually allow much time for foreplay, generally she'd just push him onto the bed and pounce. She fisted her hands in the sheets to keep her fingernails away from his skin as he touched her and kissed her. 

He helped her out of her nightdress, and slid slowly into her as she fought the temptation to bite his shoulder. She was determined to finish what she had started and keep to her word.

“Missy,” he sighed against her neck. “Missy.”

 _This is what it's like for other people_ , she thought. _Normal people. People who love each other._

It wasn't bad. It was difficult controlling her more violent impulses, but she didn't hate it.

He moved, found a new angle, and she clutched at him as her moans grew louder. She was careful not to dig her nails in as she drew her fingers across the skin of his back. She had drawn blood from him before, and had left plenty of bruises, but she wanted this to be different. 

She liked the way he was looking at her, with less fear and more adoration than she was used to. She could get quite used to that.

Their movements were quicker now, more urgent. The bed creaked beneath them and Missy whispered passionate nonsense to him in Gallifreyan. 

“Missy.” A groan. “Missy.”

She was so close, so close. She looked up at him and smiled, then closed her eyes again when her orgasm hit her. She swore silently and felt a relaxing pleasure cover her as she waited for him to finish. When he did she kissed him, with not even a bite to his lips.

They parted slowly, reluctantly. She listened as her heartbeats slowed to normal, settled contentedly on the bed. 

The Doctor was looking at her with obvious concern. “Did I hurt you?” he asked.

She shook her head, surprised by the question. “No.”

“You're crying,” he told her. 

“I don't know why,” she said, blinking quickly to dislodge any more tears. She touched her face and examined the wetness on her fingertips. “Must be dust,” she said, grasping for an explanation.

The Doctor looked at her for a while, but he didn't say anything else.

 

Missy sang to herself as she poured tea into her cup. She was feeling quite good this morning, and she sat down at the kitchen table with an easy grace. 

“This was the last of the milk,” she said when the Doctor appeared a few minutes later. “You'll have to go out for more.”

He didn't respond to that, just sat down across the table from her and leaned back slightly in his chair. He seemed to have something on his mind. 

Missy waited. 

Finally he spoke. “Are we going to talk about what happened last night?” 

Missy raised a perfect eyebrow. “What happened last night?” she asked, innocently.

“When we were in bed,” he clarified. 

“Oh, that.” She thought he might be about to declare his undying love for her, an idea that both excited and repelled her. “What about it?”

“Did you like it?” he asked, not managing to make it seem like a casual enquiry.

“Did you miss the bit where I had an orgasm?”

“I mean emotionally. Did you like it emotionally?” 

Missy was aware that her answer could potentially change their relationship quite drastically. She shrugged carelessly. “It was only an experiment. I just wanted to see what it would be like.”

“And?”

“And I didn't hate it,” she admitted. She held his gaze, silently daring him to press on with this line of questioning. There was an answer at the end of it that she was sure he wouldn't like. She had prepared it specially this morning.

“Okay,” he said, glancing away from her for a moment. “Maybe I was just reading too much into it.”

“You were,” she told him. “You're still determined to turn me into you, aren't you? You're such a narcissist, Doctor.”

“I'm an optimist,” he countered. “I think you could be a very kind and caring person, if you wanted to be.”

“Well, I don't.”

“You're changing,” he told her. “You're nowhere near as awful as you used to be. Having a family seems to be having a positive effect on you.”

“Don't be ridiculous,” she snapped, glaring at him.

“Having someone to care for has made you...” he stopped, as if he couldn't find the right word.

“Soft?” she offered. “Pathetic?”

“Good.”

Missy didn't like where this seemed to be going. “I told you,” she said, “Poppea is mine and people don't get to take things away from me.”

“You love her,” said the Doctor.

“I really don't.”

“You'd move the heavens to keep her safe. I'm fairly sure you'd die for her, if you had to.”

“Shut up,” said Missy.

He pressed on. “Why is it such a bad thing? Why can't you admit that care for someone other than yourself?”

“If you don't stop talking I'm going to kill you,” she said, coldly.

“You won't,” said the Doctor confidently. “I'm fairly sure you love me too.”

Missy stood quickly. “I'm incapable of love,” she said, raising her voice, “and I'm proud of that. Love makes people slow and stupid and it gets them killed. Do you want me to throw our daughter into a supernova to prove how heartless I am? Would that shut you up?”

“Missy, you've changed. That's good, it's wonderful. It's what I've been hoping for all my lives.” 

“I don't _want_ to change!” she shouted. “I don't want to be you!” She walked quickly out of the kitchen and down the corridor to the console-room.

The Doctor followed her. “Just calm down and listen to me.”

“No!” she spat back. She picked up her old vortex manipulator from a bookcase and spun to face him.

When he saw what she was holding he stopped. “No.”

“I'm not staying here to be insulted.”

“Missy. Please.”

She touched the device at her wrist and left him on his own.


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> THE END!

Missy was bored. She hated being bored. She sat in her throne leaning her head on her hand. “Someone do something interesting,” she ordered.

Her top advisor bowed ornately.

“Yeah, yeah,” she said as acknowledgement. “What are we doing today?”

“Sentencing prisoners, your excellence.”

“Good, I like doing that.” She sat up straight. “Let's kill some people, eh?”

A small and trembling man was dragged out before her throne. Trembling was good, fear was good. 

“What did he do?” she asked. This was more for show than because there was any sentence other than death.

“He wrote on one of your statues, eminence.”

She gasped. “You bitch,” she said to her latest victim. “I spent ages on those. Do you know how long I had to stand still for the sculptor to get a good likeness?” She was very displeased. “Right, I sentence you to death by... really big ants. Yeah, that sounds good, doesn't it? Ants?”

The man collapsed in front of her. “Please,” he begged, “what about my son?”

“What about your son?” she asked. 

“He's just a baby. He needs me to look after him.”

Something cold ran down her spine. She took a moment to compose herself, and then she went on. “You should have thought of that before you disrespected me.”

“But -”

“Shut up,” she snapped. She was appalled to find that she was struggling with her conscience, something she was fairly sure had never been a problem before. She sat back, tired, and waved a hand. “Oh, take him back to prison. I'll sentence him tomorrow, after I've had a nice lunch.”

She stood from her throne and stepped down off the raised platform it stood on. “I don't want to do this any more, it's boring. I'm going to have a nap.”

She walked quickly from the throne room back to her suite of rooms down the corridor. She was aware of her fingernails digging into her palms as she went, and she was trying not to shake with anger.

She stopped in front of the full-length mirror in her bedroom. “What did you do to me, Doctor?” she asked her reflection. “How did you break me?” She wanted to find him and kill him over and over until he actually stayed dead.

Only she didn't. She couldn't quite bring herself to wish him dead. She picked up a priceless vase and threw it against the mirror. Both objects shattered and she didn't even enjoy the destruction all that much. 

“I hate him,” she told herself. “He's an idiot and he's never right about anything and always ruins things.”

She paced back and forth on an antique carpet. “The only person worth caring about is myself. I'm the only one who matters. Nothing good ever came of being selfless.”

There was a timid knock on the door. “Come in,” she called, tiredly.

Her advisor poked his head through the gap between door and frame. “Is something wrong, o majestic one?”

Everything was wrong, all of it. She shook her head and he ventured farther into the room. 

“I used to love this sort of thing,” she told him, grateful for an audience. “Taking over a planet, being a tyrant, waiting for the Doctor to come and stop me.”

“No one could stop you, your magnificence!”

Missy shook her head wearily. “I think he already has.” She sat down on the edge of her bed. Her eyes were traitorously misty and her voice was unsteady. “He's ruined me. Him and that stupid baby.” She lifted her vortex manipulator from the bedside table. “Sorry about leaving you with a power vacuum, but I have things to be getting back to.”

“Your benevolence?”

“See you around,” she said, activating the manipulator.

 

She reappeared in the nursery on the TARDIS. The Doctor was sitting on the floor with Poppea, helping her stack alphabet blocks. When he saw Missy he stood, lifting the child as he moved.

“You came back,” he said, eyes wide.

“Yes.” she said. “I was just getting a few things sorted out. You know, old debts to settle, that kind of thing.” She held out her hands. “Let me hold her.”

The Doctor passed Poppea to her and she noticed how much the girl had grown in her absence. “Did I miss anything good?”

The Doctor nodded. “She made some noises. I think she wanted to know where you were.”

“She's heavier, have you been feeding her properly?”

“I did my best.”

“Of course you did,” said Missy. “That's what you always do, isn't it?”

“Are you staying?” he asked quietly, a nervous tremor in his voice. 

“Yes. I don't really have anything else to do anyway. I might as well take care of you two.” She tickled Poppea under her chin and smiled at her. “Is that okay with you?”

“It's good,” said the Doctor, finally managing to smile. “It's all I could have hoped for.”

Missy nodded like it was nothing. She kissed Poppea's forehead. “All together again,” she said. “Just the way it should be.”

 

They sat in the shade of a tree on an uninhabited planet in an unfashionable galaxy. Missy looked around at the empty countryside, and beside her the Doctor was weaving little flowers together to make a crown. They were making a day of it and Missy had even consented to making sandwiches for the outing.

The Doctor put the crown of flowers on his head and raised his eyebrows at Missy.

“You look like an idiot,” she said affectionately. She turned her head. “Poppea, stop poking your brother.”

“He started it,” the girl protested. 

“Yes, but he's barely a toddler and you have some degree of self-control.” She wasn't angry, she wasn't even annoyed. 

Poppea nodded, her face an adorable pout.

The Doctor leaned towards Missy and whispered in her ear. “Should we try for another one?”

She shook her head. “Not just yet. But we can practice later,” she added quietly, “in case we forget how it's done.”

He kissed her cheek and she found herself smiling. It was nice, it was pleasant, it was good. It wasn't what she'd intended when she'd found herself pregnant that first time, but somehow it had all worked out. 

“Thank you,” she said to the Doctor, because she had never quite said it before.

“For what?” he asked, opening the picnic basket in search of a sandwich.

“For this. For the children. For us.”

“I didn't do it all on my own,” he said.

“You didn't,” she agreed. “But you did help.”

“I'm hungry,” whined Poppea, interrupting. The Doctor handed her a sandwich and she bit into it eagerly.

Missy looked up at the sky. It was a beautiful day.


End file.
